A review of The Chronicles of Marnia, as written in 2013 and never published:
This is it: the fag-end of the American hardcore mentality, of the idea that work could set you free so long as you were your own boss, working by your own rules. This album could be your life, but would you really want it to be? Opening track ‘Year of the Glad’ points towards good old-fashioned LA resurrection (“Everything’s starting now”), something fitting for the album cover. But even with new drummer Kid Millions and touring bassist Nithin Kalvakota throwing themselves into the dream with her, Stern still can’t make the illusion stick. When the song crashes to a close, the doubts (“What makes it so great?” “I’m not staying”) keep on ringing long the guitars have gone quiet.
‘You Don’t Turn Down’ threatens to be a tour song, Stern’s Get In The Van-style account of her global travels. Touring has taken its toll on more than just Stern’s bank balance, but thankfully when she hollers about how she’s “losing hope in [her] body” she does so while choreographing an impossible array of tiny guitar parts, colluding with Millions and Kalvakota to suggest a mammoth, Led Zepplin-esque racket through delicate composition. She may be losing faith in her physicality but her band still know how to fake it with the best of them. Still, the most startling moment comes when the other players drop away and let Stern find her moment, eyes closed, ignoring the tiny crowd in front of her,
According to a couple of drunken friends of mine the third track, ‘Noonan’, was used in Made In Chelsea once. I’ve no idea whether they were taking the piss out of me but I don’t really care because while a pseudo-reality show about a bunch of pampered Southern wannabes might seem like the least punk context imaginable, it still fits with the open desperation of this song (“Don’t you want to besomebody a stuttering grove made out of a half-dozen tiny shards of instrumentation
‘Nothing is Easy’
‘Immortals’
‘The Chronicles of Marnia’
‘Still Moving’
‘East Side Glory’
‘Proof of Life’
‘Hell Yes’